Saturday, March 26, 2011

Japan Reactors

Since March 11, the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been in various states of disrepair after being battered by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

Here is the latest on the status of each reactor and what was being done to prevent further emissions of radioactive material.

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Reactor No. 1

An official with the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the embattled nuclear plant, acknowledged Saturday that it knew March 18 that pooled water in the No. 1 reactor's turbine building had tested positive for high levels of radiation. But that information, and the general sense that water found in any reactors' turbine or other building may be radioactive, was not initially communicated.

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On Saturday, Tokyo Electric said that the radiation level in the turbine building's water was about 200 millisieverts per hour -- high, but still about half that as in reactor No. 3's turbine building.

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Fresh water was injected into the unit's reactor core Saturday. This is in place of the saltwater that had been used for the same purpose, to cool nuclear fuel rods in the reactor and spent fuel pools. Besides its cooling purposes, experts hope the fresh water will help flush out salt to better allow the cooling system to operate.

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On Friday, Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's nuclear and industrial safety agency told reporters Friday that the situation then appeared "rather stable" at the reactor, despite previously fluctuating pressure and temperature readings.

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According to the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, a nuclear trade group that has been keeping tabs on government and utility company accounts of the nuclear crisis efforts, the lighting is now working at buildings in and around the No. 1 reactor.

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The same group has said the No. 1 unit's reactor core has been damaged, but its containment vessel was not. On Saturday, the reactor's cooling systems were still not operational.

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Still, the building was "severely damaged" by an earlier hydrogen explosion.